Ever since the dinosaur Deinocheirus mirificus was first identified in 1965, paleontologists have been trying to figure out what the animal looked like. This year, paleontologists unearthed a nearly complete skeleton of the dinosaur, which revealed Deinocheirus was "much weirder than anyone could have imagined." Research describing the skeleton was published in October.

Maurílio Oliveira via Max Langer

Scientists call this guy the "Thief of Tachira." The feisty little dinosaur, Tachiraptor admirabilis, was discovered in Venezuela when researchers unearthed two leg bone fossils of the new species in the Andes Mountains. A paper describing the discovery was published in October.

Julius T. Csotonyi/NC State University

This newly identified dinosaur Rhinorex condrupus had quite a large nose. Though the dinosaur was originally excavated from Utah’s Neslen formation in the 1990s, researchers just recently reconstructed the skull fully, at which point they realized they'd found a new dino species. An article describing the new research was published in September.

Davide Bonadonna

Of the hundreds of types of dinosaurs that have been discovered, none has ever been shown to have been adapted for life in the water. But an international team of scientists say a species called Spinosaurus aegyptiacus was the first truly semiaquatic dinosaur--and pretty bizarre. A paper describing the dinosaur was published in September.

Mark Witton, University of Portsmouth

A new "titanosaur" species was discovered in Africa, and research describing the finding was published in September. The enormous herbivore, called Rukwatitan bisepultus, is estimated to have weighed as much as several elephants and likely stretched 30 feet from head to tail.

In March, paleontologists working in the Dakotas announced they'd discovered a new dinosaur species, Anzu wyliei, also known as the "chicken from hell." Named after Anzu, a birdlike demon from ancient mythology, the feathered dinosaur roamed North and South Dakota 66 million years ago.

Chuang Zhao

Not all tyrannosaurs had short, brutish faces like that of Tyrannosaurus rex. Paleontologists in China unearthed the remains of a slender, long-snouted tyrannosaur—and nicknamed it 'Pinocchio rex' for its impressive nose. The discovery was published in a report in May.

A new massive, meat-eating dinosaur that roamed a Jurassic-era coastline was unearthed in Portugal. The big-clawed, sharp-toothed species, dubbed Torvosaurus gurneyi, may be the largest land predator from the period ever found in Europe. The discovery was published in a paper in March.

The Miocene epoch (23.03 to 5.332 million years ago) boasted a real life sea monster, Carcharocles megalodon. Whereas the giant shark mainly inhabited the open ocean, this image depicts a hypothetical encounter with a swimming Platybelodon, a prehistoric mammal related to the elephant. The bones of these elephantids sometimes show evidence of attack by sharks.